Lost and Found
by SilverInkblot
Summary: He collects their tangible memories; maybe one day he can give them all back, if they should ever come looking for them.


The wind whistled through the dusty towers of the world called Earth.

They rose from the ground like gigantic geometric trees of lost memories and forgotten tales reaching for the skies humanity had left them behind for. The stars peeked through the polluted atmosphere to wink down upon Earth's decayed surface, taunting in their celestial beauty.

Trotting along the broken roads, a little robot cleans the world as best he can, collecting humanity's missing stories and stealing a glimpse of the stars when the clouds parted.

His latest finds include a pair of sunglasses that had once belonged to a famous human celebrity, a miraculously unbroken champagne glass that had once been used to toast a wedding celebration, a stuffed teddy bear that a little girl lost and cried for days over, and a battered top hat that was thrown away after being replaced by a new one. He would never know the histories of any of these things, but finds them interesting nonetheless.

He gives them homes and each had a special place on his shelves, out of the uncaring reach of a dead world.

Suns and moons came and went. His collection grew. Rusted keys and shoe boxes, dried up markers, outdated currency, tiny army men that would never see their fellows again, anything that caught his unbiased eye went into the red and white cooler to be given a home again.

He finds the music box in the height of the day.

The sun was beating down, filtered through dust and impurities and gleamed on the bronze hinges of a wooden box with an ornate latch that would have otherwise escaped his notice were it not so beautifully made, or was it made of a more corrosive metal. He examines the latch with a whistle and lifts it tenderly, as though afraid it would snap off. He opens the lid slowly and from within a gentle melody emerges, unheard for nearly seven hundred years.

The lid tilts back all the way to reveal a tiny dancer, spinning in an eternal circle, for her gears had, incredibly, been untouched by the dust and grime of the world and remained in perfect working order. He _oooohhs_ and _aaahhhs_ at the apparition, and a quick inspection of the box yields the turn key on the back when her dance reaches its end. He rewinds her and she dances again, circling herself over and over and over.

Inside are wilted papers and small trinkets, of no value to anyone save the original owner, long since gone. A golden band similar to many he had seen before, a linked chain with a shiny blue gem at the end, a pressed flower and several photographs; a woman with long hair and a man with a happy smile. He examines the papers, but they are too faded now to read, and he has never learned anything more difficult than his own name.

He takes the box back with him, though he has to carry it; it's far too large for his little cooler. He lets the dancer dance to her tingling little tune and soon learns to whistle it as well as the ones he already knows. The papers and baubles he leaves inside, and so, one story at least, remains whole, if unheard.

Compacting the uninteresting , for that was his directive, he piles the towers higher and higher and wonders if one day maybe he can reach the sky and give back all the lost stories he has collected over the years, and hopes that maybe someone else has all the missing pieces.

* * *

He never fills in all the gaps in his collection, all the personal details of lives past, but the Axiom's computer has much stored away in regards to their directives and functions. He can never give them names and faces, but the world will always have the tangible reminders of what came before.

When the seas boil over and the sun expands and the Earth is well and truly dead, humanity returns to the stars out of necessity. This time though, they took the Earth with them.

* * *

_Being a collector myself, I've wanted to do something for WALL - E practically since I saw it. So this is about two years overdue :)_

_- SilverInkblot  
_


End file.
